Editorial: A future shock awaits economy

The more complex and threatening the problem, the longer it takes for society to recognize and act on it. Take climate change. That danger has long been almost universally recognized but the nation has done little, save for executive action by President Obama, to combat it. Another threat, almost as profound, has received even less attention. New Hampshire, though it has relatively little manufacturing left, is a leader in the effort to use artificial intelligence and robots to perform work long done by humans. More than a half-dozen companies are making robots and teaching them do ever more complex tasks. Among them are Adept Mobile Robots in Amherst, Dean Kamen’s DEKA research in Manchester and VGo communications in Nashua. Their efforts are progressing far faster than experts predicted. Obama even…